


Sunshine and Sadness

by windmireking



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: :), Angst, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright Spoilers, Hoshido | Birthright Route, elise centric, lets write more angst for her and hinoka ok ok ok ok, oo boy, this girl suffers too, where is it, wheres all the sad elise fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 02:38:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7296157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windmireking/pseuds/windmireking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had to smile, even if some days it was like her makeup - fake and applied for appearances only.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunshine and Sadness

Nohr was dark. The sadness leeched through every pore of Castle Krakenburg, threatening to leech into everyone and make them as sad and cold as the country it made its home in. Even the sunniest of hearts, fighting to make it a little more happy, felt its chill.

Elise had to smile. Someone had to. Someone had to act the child, a child left without that cold darkness in their heart. Her elder brother, only older by two years and a handful of months, was cold. Leo acted like he was cast of ice, cold and closed off, chilling everything around him. He did smile, and Elise wanted to see him smile more. 

It was upsetting to see that her family only smiled when Elise got them to. Xander was a marble statue, and Camilla acted like the mother that everyone needed but didn't have, Leo was the cold scholar in the family – more books than giggles – so that left the sunny child to Elise.

Corrin was easier to smile. They always smiled when Elise and her siblings visited the fortress. Elise would cling to them and hug them, cuddling warmth more back into herself so she could smile more in Castle Krakenburg. As much as she loved Arthur and Effie, she couldn't get the same level of warmth from them as she could her older sibling. 

She hated she couldn't do more than smile as she healed, smiled as she stitched bones and flesh back together. Someone so young shouldn't have had to see the gore she'd seen, she'd smelt and trudged through. She had to smile through all of that, a smile as she helped others get back to their feet, back to the fight that everyone fought for no clear reason other than ordered to. 

It made her worry if her false smiles made others around her hate her – if they found her annoying and that her words and smiles were shallow. It made her cold and dark heart colder and she hated it. She hated herself and couldn't do anything about it because no one would believe her because of her mask of the ever smiling Elise. She wondered if her constant games and laughter made anyone darker, anyone more hateful of the world because she was a bother. 

Elise didn't want her sunshine to die but sometimes it felt like it would and constant rain would invade its space instead. She didn't want tears to become her smiles, sobs instead of laughter. 

She didn't know if she feared smiling or not smiling, and chose to smile anyways because at least others would smile in response. Laughter was infectious and so were tears, but one thing drained a person of all energy they had to give and left a cold husk behind. 

Some days it was hard to smile, hard to get out of bed, even if her retainers tried, Elise could just roll over and fake sleep for another hour. She had to get up, put her smile on like her makeup and tell herself that someone had to smile, that she had to be the one. A coldness that couldn't be chased away by fire would settle in her heart, shadowing her smile like a cloudy day to a sun. 

As Corrin left them and returned to Hoshido, her smiles were rarer, everyone was darker. Everyone had a harder time smiling – they frowned so much, even Elise. She hated it. Even then, Elise shined through the clouds, even if the smiles never truly reached her eyes some day. She would smile to her last breath. She escaped the castle, selling flowers for cheap to see days brightened even a little. Everyone was so worried, so focused on hate and war. Elise wanted to see the sun in everyone. Even if her smile felt too fake some days, she still wore it.

Everyone needed a break, everyone needed to breathe. No one could, no one had the time. Just kill, just kill. Elise couldn't. Her heart couldn't let her and she wouldn't. She wouldn't let her smile be the last thing Hoshidans saw before they died, and she wanted the war to end so people could smile again, honestly and without lies. 

She made up her mind, a smile not on her lips as she was serious, gaze hardening as she decided that her life would be one of the last deaths of this war if she did die as she fought to persuade Xander to put down his sword.

With the slice of a sword through her clothing – lacking armour because what was there to protect, when she cowered behind everyone else, rushing up to heal so they could fight again – and there was that cold edge, warm only on his thighs as Xander supported her, his arms shaking as they held her. His marble perfection was shattered, his composure vanished like she had intended even if she had not taken the hit. 

He cried, tears spilling over and if her heart wasn't already bleeding it would be; crimson soaking white and black fabric, dying everything a sticky red. Her breath was shaky as she spoke, running out of time as she fought to keep her smile on her lips so she died with one on her face. The skin between her brows pinched as she spoke, touching his cheek and holding it there even as her breath faded more and more as she lost too much blood. 

After all, one couldn't live when a ragged cut sliced through your clothes, tearing you apart. Especially when it was Elise's own sibling she loved so much her heart ached when he didn't have even the smallest of smiles. He was going to die that day as well, and him wanted to assure him that in her final thoughts, he was there – along with all of her siblings. 

A hot tear dragged down her cheek through the sweat and the dirt before her hand fell limp to her side. She could see that Nohr would one day see sun again, even if it wasn't real sunshine. Someone would bring it back to the land.

Too bad it wasn't going to be her, it wouldn't be her as she would be laid six feet under. Minutes later, her brother joined her in death because he gave nothing left to the fight. Suicide, for all intents and purposes. Finally, he would have been able to truly rest.


End file.
